Two of Major League Baseball’s most storied franchises will meet with a World Series berth at stake when the St Louis Cardinals and Los Angeles Dodgers open the best-of-seven National League Championship Series in St Louis on Friday.

Andy Pafko, a four-time All-Star who played on the last Chicago Cubs team to reach the World Series and was the famously forlorn outfielder who watched Bobby Thomson’s “Shot Heard ‘Round the World” sail over the left-field wall during the 1951 National League playoff, has died. He was 92.

Shane Victorino’s infield single snapped a seventh-inning tie and journeyman Craig Breslow gave Boston a huge boost out of the bullpen, sending the Red Sox into the AL championship series with a 3-1 victory over the Tampa Bay Rays on Tuesday night.

The Boston Red Sox batted around in two successive innings to back the superb pitching of Jon Lester in a 12-2 rout of the visiting Tampa Bay Rays in the opener of their American League Division Series on Friday.

David Stern is soon on his way to the Philippines and Taiwan. After that, it’s off to Beijing and Shanghai.

His final months as commissioner are the NBA’s boldest yet when it comes to playing internationally, and he thinks bringing the league around the globe will remain important long after he’s left office in February.

They went from 93 losses last year to 97 wins this season with a new manager and new players who helped transform a dysfunctional clubhouse with some frat-house bonding and a Boston Red Sox battle cry of “Fear the Beard.”

The Cleveland Indians claimed an American League wild card berth, while the Tampa Bay Rays and Texas Rangers extended the season for one more game by finishing in a tie for the league’s second wild card spot.